Primitive solutions of the Korteweg-de Vries equation

We survey recent results connected with constructing a new family of solutions of the Korteweg-de Vries equation, which we call primitive solutions. These solutions are constructed as limits of rapidly vanishing solutions of the Korteweg-de Vries equation as the number of solitons tends to infinity. A primitive solution is determined nonuniquely by a pair of positive functions on an interval on the imaginary axis and a function on the real axis determining the reflection coefficient. We show that elliptic one-gap solutions and, more generally, periodic finite-gap solutions are special cases of reflectionless primitive solutions.